Fight the Treatment Industrial Complex

AFSC-Arizona staff are amazing advocates for prisoners - and as such, are true blessings to our communities. Spend time on their site - lots of resources.

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NATIVE RESISTANCE AND THE CARCERAL STATE

Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...

This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.

Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.

Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.

I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.

In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail, Jessie B.

I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.

I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends. If you are in need of additional assistance fighting the prison industrial complex in Arizona - or if you care to offer some aid to the cause - please contact the Phoenix Anarchist Black Cross at PO Box 7241 / Tempe, AZ 85281. collective@phoenixabc.org

The ACA is a 140-year-old group that has established internationally followed standards for prisons. Its guidelines call for a one-person cell that’s used to house an inmate for more than 10 hours to have 70 square feet of floor space even if the inmate is on suicide watch.

The so-called squirrel cages at St. Tammany Parish Jail, which is not an accredited member of the ACA, cover 9 square feet.

None of the prison supply companies contacted sell cages similar to those used by St. Tammany or knew of other companies that sell them.

“If this was widely used, I would have heard about it or seen it somewhere,” Gaines said.

St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain and his medical director, Dr. Demaree Inglese, have come under fire for using the cages to house suicidal inmates. The ACLU of Louisiana claims guards deny caged inmates the use of bathrooms, forcing them to urinate and defecate in cups or on themselves.

Strain and Inglese say the state’s failure to provide medical beds for inmates declared mentally incompetent has forced under-funded and ill-equipped parish jails such as St. Tammany’s to take on their care until a hospital bed is available.

They said they are making the best out of a bad situation.

“Safety has to come before comfort,” Inglese said. “It’s impractical to think we can deliver the same care as a hospital.”

That is a cop-out, said Lindsay Hayes, the country’s leading expert on suicide prevention in prisons and jails and a consultant with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Instead of preventing suicide, the use of the cages increases the risk, Hayes said. Inmates will be less likely to tell a doctor or guard they are suicidal knowing they will be locked up in a squirrel cage. And once inside, inmates will say anything to get out, even if they are still contemplating suicide, just to end the humiliation, he said.

"(Strain and Inglese) should take a trip around the country to any one of the other 3,500 county facilities and realize they are alone in the way they treat their mentally ill suicidal inmates,” Hayes said.

Every local jail has a backlog of mentally ill defendants who are waiting for treatment in the state hospital system, Hayes said, but St. Tammany Parish Jail is the only one that chooses to handle the backlog by putting people in squirrel cages.

“I’m hired to go into jails and assess their suicide prevention practices, and I’ve never gone into a jail and where I had to tell someone to stop locking people in cages. There’s no precedent for what they’re doing.”

Hayes takes particular aim at Inglese.

“What’s most disappointing is that the medical director seems to be very much involved in this,” he said.Medical directors who disagree with prison policy either resign or refuse to comment, Hayes said. Instead, Inglese has defended the use of the cages.

“When a medical director makes very little comment about a policy, you can tell they don’t care for it, are embarrassed professionally by it and wouldn’t want their colleagues around the country to know that they work in such a system. But here you have a medical director on the record saying it’s the state’s responsibility and that’s just ridiculous.”

Cages similar to those at St. Tammany Jail are used in limited instances at maximum security prisons, Hayes said. Violent, mentally ill patients are sometimes placed in cages during court-mandated group therapy sessions, but only for an hour.

The abuse extends beyond the cages, according to affidavits the ACLU obtained from former St. Tammany prisoners.

They claim prison guards stripped inmates before they were put into the cages and forced them to wear bright orange Daisy Duke shorts that have “Hot Stuff” emblazoned on the front and back.

“Humiliating the mentally ill, the most vulnerable, is a sport that breaks the monotony and exemplifies unprofessionalism,” Hayes said. “So when you find a case like this, you’ll also find there are many other problems with this jail, not just how they treat their mentally ill.”

St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis hired a consulting firm to evaluate the jail after two high-profile escape incidents. In February, a design flaw at the prison allowed accused murderer Carlos Rodriguez to flee the facility. And in June 2009, four inmates, all facing murder or attempted murder charges, escaped from the jail. All were eventually apprehended.

The consultant’s report, released in June, recommends $2 million in improvements at the Covington jail. Davis has suggested paying for part of the upgrades by charging medical fees to inmates.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

St. Tammany Parish corruption has existed for some time. If the people with the grievances don't take a piece of themselves and put it on the line, the fear that drives the people can never be transferred to the oppressors. Make no mistake, you make your name known, you endanger your life, but the PEOPLE GAIN COURAGE. You must decide your level of involvement, but please make your blow count and PLEASE protect yourself afterward. Search "St. Tammany Parish corruption" in Google, and try to understand what living there for 2 more years was like. I won't stand for it where I live. Will you?

Karma strikes those wolves in lamb's clothing many times harder than the run of the mill villains, so God willing, and watching, I sincerely hope your intentions are rewarded with 10fold the Karma, whether they be good or bad. One of us put their life on the line to bring their true life testimony to the people for courage, so if you took that limelight with the intent of spreading this word of evildoing to more people, God bless you. If it was somehow money motivated, I can guarantee the sacrifices I've made, the danger I took, the Hell I endured, and my sincerest prayers to God will ensure you fail at every future venture you take on. This endeavor I still follow at least weekly to ensure action is taken, so you had better find yourself on the right side of right and wrong. You will not escape the Karma associated with this entire situation, and neither will Strain, or any one of his cohorts involved in the monetary profiting off of innocent citizens. Just make sure it's of pure reason when you replace a true life testimony of what happened in the jail with some editor with some opinion of what he/she truly knows nothing about despite their most sincere empathy.

As bad as Maricopa County may be, The justice Dept. Should look at St. Tammany Parish La. In this parish the Sheriff, the District Attorney and some Judges Are in my opinion corrupt. The Criminal Justice System is run like a Gulag. What is done to the people is CRIMINAL...There is little JUSTICE...and the abuse is SYSTEMATIC. I have been a police officer and have little sympathy for criminals, but what is done to the citizens of this area goes beyond anything I've ever experienced.

I am from Michigan. Went to Louisiana after Katrina to work. Was caught with a quarter gram of cocaine. Yes I am guilty of that. For possessing that amount of a substance in St. Tammany Parish I first had my ass kicked by the Slidell Police Department. Never once tried to fight or resist. Next I was sentenced to 4 years at hard labor..!!! Really!!!! Most of that time was spent in St. Tammany Parish Jail.. Yes D.O.C. inmate serving out my sentence in a jail turned prison. No where else in the country would you get such inhumane treatment. I spent a whole month in a holding cell. With 20-30 people at all times. SICK!! When I finally was moved to population I was given a metal bed frame to sleep on with no mattress. Slept without a mattress for another month.. After four months I was stabbed in the face. 2 Months later they stuck me back in the same dorm with the man who stabbed me.. UNREAL!!!!! I did my time.. Yes it was Hard time... St.Tammany Parish is the most corrupt place Ive ever been... Seen some horrible things there...